Transformers Prime: Harbinger
by Fatal Intestinal Maelstrom
Summary: Team Prime investigates the appearance of an old enemy who may not be who she appears to be, and deals with the fallout from their existence being suddenly revealed to the public. Picks up where "Enemy of my Enemy" ended.
1. Chapter 1

"We're almost there," Arcee said through her human-size doppelgänger.

Jack nodded and reached up to put his hand over the back of hers, hoping she couldn't detect his elevated heart rate through her palm as it rested on his chest. As soon as they had come out of the ground-bridge, he'd started rethinking his insistence on coming along. He was heading straight toward a potentially lethal enemy, and he hadn't taken the time to put his armor on. All he had were his jeans, T-shirt, and shoes.

_Oh, well. I've faced Airachnid before with nothing but the clothes on my back and a shitty survival kit. Besides, I don't know if this even _is_ Airachnid. Sure as hell didn't _act_ like her._

Arcee slowed to a gradual stop. Jack and her Mini-Me got off and backed away to give her enough room to transform from her motorcycle mode to her bipedal mode. She crouched, crept up the side of the hill, and peeked over the top. Jack and her remote-controlled, human-size body followed her.

"Huh," Arcee muttered. "I'll be damned."

Jack poked his head up just far enough to get a good look at the scene a few dozen yards away, and found Airachnid sitting off to the side of the highway. The van she'd rescued from a plunge off the overpass was parked where she's placed it gently on the pavement, and a family stood on the shoulder, staring up at her. Police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances surrounded them. The cops had their guns drawn, for all the good it would do.

A familiar engine rumbled up behind Jack and Arcee. He glanced over his shoulder and found Optimus Prime parking long enough for Jack's mom to get out and jog toward him. Optimus detached from his trailer and shifted into his robot mode.

"Arcee," he said softly, "our weapons are in the trailer."

She nodded and turned back to lock her optics onto Airachnid.

"I wonder if we'll even need 'em." Jack stared at Airachnid and shook his head. "I'm not sure how to handle this."

"I don't know what kind of game that bitch is playing," Arcee snarled, "but as soon as I can get her far enough away from all those innocent bystanders, I'm taking her ass _out_."

"Remain calm." Optimus rested his hand on her shoulder. "Judging by her behavior, she has either lost her memory, or is merely someone who resembles Airachnid. The former would mean the Airachnid we know is likely dead, and the latter would be someone we should not threaten until we find out who she is and whether she is a danger."

"Well, then." Jack glanced at them. "If you walk over to them, everyone else might panic."

"Agent Fowler will be here in a few minutes. His team will cordon off the area and move everyone here to a safe distance."

"If this _is_ some kind of trick," Arcee said, "a few minutes is all it would take for Airachnid to kill everyone around her."

"She has not given any indication of hostile intent. If it _is_ a ruse, the purpose could be to make you go to her, in which case she might attack you on sight." Optimus fixed a stern look on her. "Ratchet doesn't believe you are ready for another battle so soon after your repairs were finished."

"I'll be the judge of that." Arcee rose to her full height.

Jack took a deep breath. "Well, if you're charging headlong out there, maybe Optimus should hang back for now. He's so much bigger than you _and_ Airachnid, all the humans over there would probably shit in their pants if they saw him coming toward them."

Arcee managed to chuckle. "Good point." She glanced at Optimus. "I'm going in."

"Me, too." Jack stood and took a step forward. Both his mom and Arcee's Pretender body reached out to grab him. He jumped forward and they missed. "If they all see a human walking alongside you, it might help keep them calm."

"Jack." June reached out to him again.

"Do we really have to argue about this again, Mom?" He glanced at Arcee and strode off toward the highway. "Come on. Time's a-waistin'."

Arcee sighed. "You know I'll protect him with my life, June." She caught up to Jack in two steps.

"So will I." June dashed after them until she caught up, then kept pace with them.

"I will be ready," Optimus said.

Arcee nodded again and continued forward, keeping her pace slow enough for Jack and his mom to keep up. "I'm sending my Mini-Me back to the trailer to pick out some guns. If this does turn out to be some sort of trap, I'm hoping I can drop the bitch before she hurts you."

Jack smiled and reached up quickly to pat the back of her leg. She smiled back, leaned down to stroke his cheek, and continued walking. Then she cocked her head.

"There's a new sniper rifle in the trailer. Bigger, bulkier, and has a longer barrel than the one I used on the _Nemesis_." She grinned suddenly. "It's a railgun recently developed by Groom Lake. Optimus just said a slug fired from it will impact with enough force to traverse a Decepticon's body and drill into whatever is behind him. I'll have to aim carefully."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Nice."

Arcee's optics widened and she beamed. "He also said they've just finished building a full-size version for me. It has an impact velocity of Mach 5. Me _likey_!"

"Jesus," June muttered. "I'm trying to imagine what that would do to someone. The picture it brings to mind looks like the end of a typical _Mythbusters_ episode."

"Pretty much." Arcee's grin grew even wider. "I feel like I'm gonna have an orgasm just from thinking about it."

Jack laughed. "Oh, suddenly I have some competition?"

"Honey, you'll _never_ have any competition." She chuckled and pointed a thumb over her shoulder. "I'm at the top of the hill back there, lining up a shot on Airachnid. If that fucking bitch makes the slightest move toward you, her head will end up filing a divorce against her body."

He grinned up at her. "That's my girl."

"Damn right, baby." After walking in silence for a few seconds, Arcee grimaced. "Oh, for...I just zoomed in on the family standing at the side of the road, and one of them is _Sierra_." Arcee pressed her lips together. "And I assume the two adults with her are her parents."

"Sierra? Seriously?" Jack shrugged. "I'd all but forgotten she existed."

Arcee smiled ever so slightly. "Well, here we go."

She strode up to Airachnid and kept her glare laser-focused on her. Airachnid and the three humans-and everyone else nearby-looked up at Arcee and their mouths flopped open.

"Another one," the woman-presumably Sierra's mother-blurted as she grabbed Sierra's arm and pulled her back.

"Take it easy, I'm not going to hurt you." Arcee held her hands up before turning back to the still-sitting rogue Decepticon. "Airachnid."

The other female responded with a blank stare. After several seconds she raised one hand in a half-shrug and said, "What's an Airachnid?"

_Same voice, even._ Jack shuddered.

Arcee raised a brow plate. "Alright, then, who are you?"

"I..." She wrung her hands and her lips quivered. "I don't know."

Jack and Arcee glanced at each other. Jack shrugged and turned back to Airachnid-or whoever.

"Do you recognize either of us?"

"Jack?" Sierra pulled away from her mother and stepped around Arcee's left leg to find where he was standing. "What are you doing here?"

"You know this kid?" the man said.

"Yeah. Mom, Dad, this is Jack Darby. We went to school together until he disappeared a few months ago."

"Yeah, uh, a lot of stuff came out of nowhere and Mom and I had to move out in a hurry. I wasn't expecting to run into you so far from Jasper."

"Parents managed to get the same two weeks off work and decided to take a drive around the country." Sierra rolled her eyes. "Midlife crisis, probably."

"Hey!" her dad snapped.

Sierra shrugged. "It was pretty boring until about half an hour ago."

"Well, life in Jasper was pretty boring until a few months ago." Jack waved his hand to the left, then the right. "Anyway, this is my mom, June. And this is Arcee." He grinned. "My girlfriend."

"What?" Sierra's face turned slack, as if her brain had shorted out.

The Airachnid-lookalike smiled. "Ah. Now I know your names, but I've never seen you before." Her smile faded. "I've only been active for a little over three hours. I have no memories beyond that."

"Okay, then." Arcee crossed her arms over her chest. "What have you been doing for those three hours?"

The lookalike's eyes grew wider and her mouth quivered and twisted into a mixture of confusion and fear.

"Running away."

#

"Alright," Ratchet muttered as he pushed one last button. "Let's see what we've got."

Arcee stood a few yards from "Airachnid," holding a shotgun in each hand, waiting for the slightest sign of hostility. Once Agent Fowler, his team, and the National Guard had shown up at the scene, she and Optimus had taken the new arrival back to their base to find out what the hell was going on. Or try to, at least.

The 'Con sat cross-legged on the floor, watching Ratchet with a slight smile. Not the kind of smile she'd always seen on Airachnid, either-there was no malevolence here, only curiosity. Ratchet had set up an exclusive wireless link between the female and a completely isolated section of the base's server.

"Well, there are three hours and two minutes worth of memories on her drive," Ratchet said. "And nothing else aside from the software she needs for basic functions. I've already checked it out and it's the same software the rest of us have for regulating our functions and connecting to nearby wireless networks."

"Play back her memories," Optimus said, and the female nodded.

"That should tell you everything." She looked away from the main monitor. "I can't watch. Living through it once was enough."

The monitor remained blank for several seconds, then an image appeared, spreading from the center toward the top and bottom-a POV shot of her optics opening for the first time.

_That looks like the interior of the _Nemesis_._ Arcee raised a brow plate. _Only a lot darker than it usually is. Which probably means it's on backup power. Not surprising, given the kind of damage Miko did when she blew up those five Insecticons._

A small window appeared in the lower corner-a log indicating the discovery of a wi-fi network, link-up, and downloading of language files.

A metallic tapping sound came from the left and the image panned in that direction. Lined up on platforms attached to the wall were four dormant Cybertronians who looked exactly like Airachnid-and a single active one.

This one had missing sections of her spider legs and a hole in her chest plate where Arcee had rammed an armor-piercing knife in to the hilt at the end of their last battle. Energon still trickled from the wound.

"_That's_ Airachnid," she growled.

"Oh." The new arrival glanced at her. "I look like her, for some reason."

Arcee nodded and returned her attention to the monitor as the Airachnid duplicate on the far end opened her optics. Airachnid had been trying to loosen the duplicate's chest plate when she noticed the movement.

"Well, what a surprise."

"Where...where is this place?" The duplicate stared at her. "Who am I?"

"Spare parts. Nothing more."

"What?"

"The thing is, with all the precautions I took, you shouldn't have even booted up." Airachnid held her hand in front of the duplicate's face. "But I can fix that."

"What are you d-"

Airachnid fired her palm-mounted blaster point-blank into the duplicate's head. The duplicate thrashed her arms and legs and released a scream that made Arcee flinch.

"Shit!" Jack blurted. Arcee looked over her shoulder at the platform on which he and his mother stood.

The scream cut off suddenly as the voice's owner died.

"Jesus Christ," Arcee muttered. She hung one of the shotguns on her back and reached over to hold Jack's hand. She looked over at the new arrival and found her clamping her hands to the sides of her head, rocking forward and back, and making soft moaning, sobbing sounds.

From the monitor came a startled yelp. Arcee turned back to the screen and found Airachnid staring straight out of it.

"Oh, another one. Seems like I simply can't catch a break this week." She aimed her blaster.

A pair of purple and black arms rose into view. "Wait! Don't hurt me!"

"I simply can't have more of me running around."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Shh." Airachnid limped closer. "It won't matter in a few seconds."

The newly-awakened duplicate swatted her arm away, turned, and ran. She stumbled and fell, picked herself up, and sprinted down a dark corridor. Airachnid's clanking footsteps followed her, and a blaster bolt seared into the wall a few feet to the left. The duplicate shrieked, jerked away from the shower of sparks, and almost fell again. She reached a branch in the corridor and stopped, turned one way and then another and back again.

Airachnid's footsteps grew ever closer. With a soft cry, the duplicate burst into another sprint, taking the corridor to the right. She continued running in a blind panic, pausing only to try to open any doors she passed by, and found them all locked. After trying a half dozen, she screamed and pounded her fist on the latest one.

"Someone, help me!"

There was no reply. She sobbed and began running again.

_Damn._ Arcee glanced over at her, still on the floor and whimpering softly, and turned back to the screen.

Corridor after corridor whipped past, with Airachnid's uneven, limping footsteps remaining close behind. Finally, after one more left turn, the next corridor appeared slightly brighter. Sunlight, Arcee realized, coming through an open door or window.

The image panned around again, revealing a jagged opening torn through a metal wall. Another sob came from the speakers and the rupture grew larger as she ran toward it. Her arms and hands appeared briefly as she squeezed through the breach. She tripped and almost fell again, but managed to recover and continue her headlong sprint over a rocky terrain.

Her foot caught on a boulder and she tumbled face-first to the ground. She scrambled back to her feet, glanced over her shoulder, and kept running.

The glance back gave Arcee a good look at the structure the Airachnid-double had escaped. It wasn't the _Nemesis_ after all, but appeared to be the aft section of a similar warship which had crashed in a canyon.

After the running continued uninterrupted for nearly a full minute, Ratchet increased the playback speed. The terrain zipped past, changing from rocky to forest to a flat, desert environment before coming to the highway where the news helicopter had spotted her.

The playback ended. Everyone remained silent for a moment.

"By the All-Spark," Ratchet muttered. "What a horrific way to start one's life."

"Yeah." Jack looked up at Arcee. "What did we just see? It looked like Airachnid...what? Cloned herself?"

"That ship must have had protoforms aboard," Optimus said. "The room appeared to be a laboratory."

June raised an eyebrow. "Uh, protoforms?"

"I guess you could call it the Cybertronian equivalent of a fetus." Arcee shrugged. "It's a standard body that's given life when a spark is placed inside it. Afterward, we add components to complete our bodies and then scan a vehicle for our alternate modes. It's how we all began our lives. And sometimes we use them to switch into a new body or replace one that's been damaged beyond hope of repair."

Ratchet turned back to the monitor and leaned on the console under it. "Airachnid must've stumbled onto the crashed ship, found these five protoforms, and figured out how to turn them into copies of herself, with the intention of cannibalizing them for parts to repair the damage from her battle with Arcee. _Ghastly_."

"Either the fabricator facilities were damaged in the crash, or Airachnid _chose_ to use the protoforms for this just to be sadistic." Arcee shuddered and crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

"Why?" the clone whimpered. "Why...why would anyone do this? Why?"

"Because she's insane." Arcee glared at the blank screen. "She likes to hurt people. Torture them. Kill them...eventually. It's how she gets her kicks. She got her hands on me and my best friend many centuries ago. Tortured me for information. When I couldn't give her what she wanted because I didn't _know_ it, she brought my friend in. He'd already been damned near torn apart. Barely clinging to life."

She squeezed her optics shut and took a moment to pull herself together.

"Hey," Jack said softly, and held his hands out. She managed to smile and leaned over to rest her forehead against his for a brief moment. She put her hand on his back and hugged him awkwardly before turning back to the clone.

"Airachnid murdered him right in front of me. It left me completely fucked-up for a really long time afterward, to the point where I was almost paralyzed with fear the next time I faced her, just a few months ago."

The clone stared back with her mouth hanging open. "That's..._horrible_. I can't even think of a word for it." She glared up at the screen. "I _hate_ her."

_Welcome to the club._ Arcee kept it to herself. This was just too weird.

"We saw three other clones," Optimus said. "They were still offline-still 'unborn,' to use a human term."

Arcee narrowed her eyes. "You're not suggesting we rescue them, are you?"

"They are innocent."

"I hate to say this," Ratchet cut in, "but they're probably already dead. Even if Airachnid hasn't had time to take them apart, she probably killed them to prevent them from booting before she could finish." He turned back to the console, pondered something, and faced Optimus again. "However, there could be something else useful on that ship. An energon stockpile, perhaps, or something we can use as weapons or defensive measures. Maybe even more protoforms held in stasis-lock."

Arcee's jaw dropped. _If there are more protoforms, we could use one of them to fix Bulkhead. Transfer his memory core and his spark into one of them, then he could add on parts from his old body and he'd be as good as new._

She took a moment to regain control of herself and looked up at Optimus. "It's worth a look, at least. If nothing else, it'd be a good idea to do everything we can to keep whatever's on that ship out of Airachnid's hands."

"Excellent point. Ratchet, can you determine the crashed ship's location from the video records?"

"Should be able to. We have the clone's entire path from the ship to that highway."

"Good. I will notify General Sanchez. He will no doubt want to send Colonel McKenna's team with us."

Arcee turned to Jack and found him smiling up at her.

"Shall we, babe?"

"Jack, I...aw, hell. I'd ask you to stay here, but I assume you wouldn't listen?"

"You assume correctly. Just give me a few minutes to put my armor on."

Arcee shook her head and rubbed a hand over her face, but didn't waste time arguing any further. "Okay. See you in a few."

Optimus nodded. "Let's gear up. We'll move out when the Colonel's team arrives."

#

Jack stepped out of the vortex and found himself at the bottom of a canyon. Optimus, Bumblebee, Arcee, the two Vehicon defectors, Starscream, and Airachnid's clone had gone through first and were waiting for them. Ashanti, Washington, Chang, and Jenson had entered the ground bridge with Jack, his mom, and two medics, Harris and Alvarez.

A few hundred yards ahead of them sat the wreckage of an enormous ship.

The clone stared at it, shuddered, and wrung her hands.

"You okay?" the female Vehicon asked softly.

"I almost died in there." The clone pointed at the ship. "Going back...isn't easy."

"You're not alone this time."

She smiled ever so slightly. "That's true. Thank you."

"Ratchet," Optimus rumbled, "we have visual on the crashed ship. We are beginning our approach."

"Understood. Good luck."

The ground bridge's vortex dissipated and he led the team forward. Arcee dropped back to the rear-to keep an eye on the clone, Jack assumed, and probably Starscream as well. She held her brand-new sniper railgun firmly in both hands.

He joined her and tapped her leg to get her attention. "How're you handling...well, you know?" He nodded at the clone.

"I don't know." Arcee stared at her, brow plates quivering as if she were forcing herself not to glare. "I know she's _not_ Airachnid, but she looks exactly like her. I look at her, and all I see is the bitch who killed Tailgate and tried so many times to kill _you_. It's...hard."

"I'm sorry." The clone glanced over her shoulder. "Maybe I should change my color scheme. I'd still look like her, but maybe not _exactly_."

Arcee shook her head. "It's not fair to make you change your appearance because of something that's not your fault."

"I'm a copy of a monster that doesn't even deserve to exist. I don't _want_ to look like her." Her right foot came down on a loose boulder, which rolled away and caused her to lose her balance. She stumbled and let out a startled squeak before recovering. "Aw...I'm such a klutz."

"Airachnid has an alt-mode that looks kinda like a spider," Jensen said. "You probably have the same thing. Might make it easier to walk on this kind of terrain."

"Huh." The clone cocked her head. "It never occurred to me to check my software for those sorts of things. Searching now...oh! I think I found it. I'll give it a try." She paused for several seconds, and then her spider legs unfolded from her back, touched the ground, and suspended her body several yards in the air. The rest of her body transformed slightly, her legs attaching and forming a single shape, but her torso remaining as it was before. She moved her spider legs carefully, and after a few seconds she grinned. "You're right, this _is_ easier!"

"Glad it worked out for you." Jensen chuckled and continued on his way.

The clone smiled and spread her arms as she scurried forward. "It's almost like floating!"

Arcee grinned, shook her head and suppressed it. She grimaced, sighed, and allowed the smile to return.

"Any suggestions for a new color scheme?" The clone smiled down at Jensen.

"Hmm. Maybe swap out the purple parts for a little hot-rod red?"

"I'll try it." As she slowed her pace so she wouldn't outrun the humans, the purple sections of her body rippled and changed to bright red. "Hmm. I'm not sure about this."

"Yeah," Chang said with a soft chuckle, "it's a bit much."

"Maybe a darker shade, then?" The red bits dimmed to burgundy. "Hmm. Better, but I'm still not sure." She shrugged. "Oh, well. I'll try a few different color schemes. One of them will feel right, sooner or later."

"Sounds like a plan." Chang smiled, faced forward, and continued on her way. Moments later, the team reached the crashed ship.

Jack scanned for Cybertronian life signs, but no blips appeared in his HUD other than Arcee and the others. He kept it to himself. The poor clone had gone through enough already.

_But then, will it hit her even harder if I don't warn her and we find the other clones dead?_ He held in a sigh.

The male Vehicon pointed at a line of Cybertronian text on the ship's hull. "This is the _Harbinger_. Last I heard, it went into battle and was never seen again. Guess now we know what happened to it."

"This is only the aft section," the female said. "Which brings up the obvious question-where did the front half go?"

"Perhaps the flight recorder is still intact." Optimus swept his optics over the hull. "If we can find a way inside that won't alert Airachnid, if she is still here..."

"The hole I escaped through is over there." The clone pointed.

"Thank you." Optimus headed in the indicated direction, and the team followed. "Ratchet, we are proceeding inside."

"Understood. Be safe, my friend."

"We will do our best." Optimus plucked his rotary cannon from his back and squeezed through the hull breach. The others readied their weapons and followed him.

The clone remained where she'd stopped, staring into the darkness beyond the breach and trembling. Arcee hesitated.

"Would you rather wait out here? One of us can stay with you if you don't want to be alone." Arcee's optics opened wider and her lips parted, as if she'd surprised the hell out of herself.

"I...I think I need to do this." The clone wrung her hands again, seemed to notice it for the first time, and stopped abruptly. "If I don't, I'll always be afraid. I don't want to be afraid anymore."

"Your fear is understandable," Starscream said, aiming his own wide-eyed stare at the breach. "Even back when Airachnid and I were on the same side, she gave me the creeps like no one else has before _or_ since."

Arcee flicked a narrow-eyed glance at him before turning back to the clone. "Well, remember, there's over a dozen of us, and only one of her." She smiled and patted the barrel of her railgun. "And we're better armed than she is."

Jack plucked his EMP rifle from the clip on his back and made sure it was charged. He nodded at Arcee and climbed through the breach into darkness.

"Okay. Let's do this."


	2. Chapter 2

"So," Jack said as the team crept through the _Harbinger_'s dark corridors, "what do we call you?" He looked up at the Airachnid clone. He'd noticed over the last few minutes that she'd grown more nervous the deeper into the ship they explored. "I feel like it'd be rude to keep referring to you as 'the clone.'"

She paused her hand-wringing long enough to shrug, then resumed. Her lips quivered and she moved forward with slow, hesitant steps. "I...I don't know. I have no idea what would...well, fit me."

"That actually makes me wonder something," Jensen said. "Cybertronians have weird names. Is it something that happens when they're translated into English? I mean, Starscream, Megatron, Bumblebee? What's up with that?"

"Well, we're aliens." Starscream arched a brow plate at him. "What sorts of names would you expect us to have? John? Dave? Steve? Bill? Jethro?"

"Hmm." The male Vehicon shrugged. "Steve works for me. I mean, if we're allowed to have names. Vehicons aren't given individual names until we rise high enough in the ranks to get unique bodies."

"Sure," Arcee said. "You can have whatever name you want. None of us will try to stop you."

"Thank you." The Vehicon sounded genuinely surprised and grateful. "Steve, it is, then." He looked at his female companion. "How about you?"

"Hmm. Let me look up a few names and see if anything grabs my interest."

Chang looked up at the clone and said, "How about Tomoko? It's Japanese. I think it means 'friendly child.' Or something like that. Seems appropriate." She blushed. "I've always thought it was a pretty name."

The clone smiled. "I like it! Thank you!"

"Any time." Chang grinned.

"Hmm." The female Vehicon cocked her head. "How does 'Khalilah' sound? It's Arabic. Also means, 'friend.'" She looked down at the floor, as if embarrassed.

"That's pretty." Tomoko smiled and nodded. "I like it."

"Yeah, good choice." Jack gave her a thumbs-up. He glanced at Tomoko and smiled, relieved to see her relaxing a little.

It didn't last long, though. The team turned another corner and Tomoko stopped and wrung her hands again. "The room at the end of this corridor is where I...began. And almost died." She backed a few steps away.

"Take it easy," Arcee said softly. "We won't let her hurt you."

Ashanti glanced at Tomoko. "Might be a good idea to change your color scheme to something completely different from Airachnid's, at least temporarily. When the shooting starts, we don't want to risk getting you confused with her."

"Oh! Good idea. Thanks." Tomoko pondered it for a moment, then shrugged. Her entire body turned white. "That'll do for now."

Ashanti smiled, nodded, and continued forward. Optimus led the team to the door at the end of the corridor. He pointed at it and glanced at Tomoko. She nodded, somewhat twitchily, and wrung her hands again.

Optimus raised his rifle, stepped into the lab, and swept his optics from right to left. Something caught his attention and he stopped, winced, and looked back at Tomoko. "It's empty," he said softly. "Except..."

"No," she whispered.

"The clones?" Jack stared at him. "They're all...?"

He nodded slowly.

Tomoko sobbed and rushed through the door, her spider legs clinking rapidly on the metal floor. Jack turned to Arcee, sighed, and followed Tomoko.

The clones lay on four of the five slanted tables along the left-hand wall. Two of them had their torsos dismantled and the other two had blaster holes in their chests, clean through their spark chambers. All four were missing various parts of their bodies.

Tomoko shifted back into her bipedal mode and stumbled over to them. She reached out slowly and laid her hand on the nearest clone's forehead. She looked slowly over all of them and sobbed again.

"My sisters." Her voice was a hollow whisper. "We didn't get here soon enough. I'm so sorry."

"So am I." Arcee reached up to touch Tomoko's shoulder. Her optics opened wider and her lips parted slightly, as if her own actions surprised her.

"Airachnid sure did repair herself quickly," Jensen muttered.

"She probably turned her pain receptors off. That'd certainly speed up the process." Arcee raised a brow plate. "Or maybe she didn't bother. For all I know, she could be as much of a masochist as she is a sadist."

"So, what now?" Jack looked around at everyone. "Can any of you detect her?"

The 'Bots and the team's new additions shook their heads.

"She is out of range," Optimus replied.

"And our communications aren't being jammed." Arcee sighed again, and clamped her railgun to her back. She crouched in front of Jack and held her hand out. He placed his in her palm and smiled.

"While we're here," Steve said, "maybe we should keep looking around. Might find something that points us in her direction."

Arcee nodded and managed to smile. She rose back to her feet and walked over to the control panels on the far side of the lab. "Let's get to it."

#

"Nothing." Arcee thumped her fist on the console. "It's a total blank."

"Perhaps the memory core was damaged during the crash or the battle that preceded it. Or perhaps it was wiped deliberately." Optimus turned toward the door. "We may find something useful in another part of the ship."

Arcee nodded and turned away from the console. She found Tomoko sitting nearby with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them, staring at the bodies of the other clones.

"Hey," Arcee said softly, and Tomoko twitched and looked up at her. "Do you want to step outside for a while? All this might be...well, a bit much, huh?"

Tomoko nodded. "I'm sorry. I just don't...feel right, in here."

Arcee glanced at Optimus and motioned at the door. He smiled and nodded.

"We will continue the search."

"Thanks." Arcee held her hand out to Tomoko and helped her up. "Let's find some better scenery."

Jack followed them through the corridors until they reached the hull breach through which they'd entered. Once outside, they walked a considerable distance from the _Harbinger_. Finally, Tomoko sat and pulled her knees up to her chest again.

Arcee sat across from her, leaned against a slanted slab of rock, and moved her legs apart enough for Jack to sit in front of her. He took his helmet off and leaned back against her. She rested her left hand across his lap and he put his hand on hers.

"Feeling better, Tomoko?" She smiled.

"I'm starting to." Tomoko glanced over at the ship, winced, and looked away quickly. "If only we'd gotten here sooner. Or if I hadn't run like a coward."

"No, if you hadn't run, Airachnid would've killed you. And she wouldn't have done it quickly."

"Why?" Tomoko's lips trembled as she looked at the _Harbinger_ again. "I know you said she's insane, but...just..._why_? What made her like that?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's got some bad code in her brain. Or she had some kind of damage to her neural network far in the past. Or maybe she was just twisted right from the beginning." Arcee shrugged and tried to close the floodgates on all her memories of Airachnid torturing her and killing Tailgate right in front of her-_and_ nearly killing Jack so many times, as well. "All I know is, she's about fifty tons of fucked-up in a ten-pound bag."

Tomoko shook her head slowly and stared at a random spot on the ground. Finally, she said, "Is it the same for the ones you've been fighting? What was it you called them?"

"Decepticons. The war started so long ago...before I even existed. You might say I was born in fire." Arcee struggled to suppress more memories before they could haunt her any more than they already had. "I'm told it started after Megatron began opposing the caste system that was imposed on everyone at the time. He was a gladiator back then. Called himself Megatronus, then sometime later he shortened his name for some reason. Anyway, back then, he seemed to be on the right side, fighting against the injustice of the caste system. But he changed as time passed. Became power-hungry. Eventually, everyone ended up either with him or against him, and the war raged on for hundreds of thousands of years, until our planet became uninhabitable."

"Your whole planet was destroyed?"

"Well, it's still there, but it's...'shut down,' for lack of a better term. Power sources depleted, the core severely damaged. The atmosphere's toxic now. Didn't have an atmosphere humans could've breathed, before, but it could've been altered if Cybertron were still alive." Arcee closed her optics for a moment and sighed. "At the core of Cybertron is...well, some of us believe it's our creator, Primus. And now he's...I don't know, dormant at best. Maybe even dead. There's a chance Cybertron can be revived, I suppose. Who knows, maybe someday, someone will find a way. I'm not getting my hopes up, though, just in case."

"You said _some_ of you believe...?"

Arcee shrugged. "Many of our archives were destroyed during the war. We lost a lot of our history, including how Cybertron came to exist. It's metal-the whole planet, everything there is what you might call synthetic. So I don't see how it could've occurred naturally. Same with _us_. The war took us all over a significant part of the galaxy, and we never encountered any other machine life. It was all organic. And from what we've seen, machines have to be built by organic life forms. But many of us prefer to believe we were created by an all-powerful, all-knowing being. Primus."

"That reminds me of when we first met." Jack chuckled. "We asked who built you, and Ratchet got all pissed-off. Like we'd insulted him."

"Yeah, I think he believes it. Either that, or he was just being his normal grouchy self." She shrugged again. "I don't buy it, though. If Primus were all-powerful, he wouldn't be dead now. Or dormant, or whatever. Like I've mentioned before, so many records were lost over the millennia, and some of us tried to fill in the blanks as best they could."

Tomoko stared at her with wide optics and a slight smile, as if hanging on her every word.

_Heh. I guess all this stuff must be incredibly fascinating for her. I've forgotten what that must be like, having lived with all this for so many thousands of years._

"Hmm." Jack stroked the back of her hand slowly. "What do _you_ think it is? Cybertron's origin, I mean?"

"I only investigated it off and on. As you might guess, we didn't have much time for anything other than killing each other. What little solid information I could find suggested Primus was a space station that was gradually added on to and built up over thousands upon thousands of years, until it was the size of a planet. I figure whoever built that space station also built us and somehow created the 'sparks' that give us life." Arcee managed a slight smile. "If this goddamned war ever ends and we're all still alive when the dust settles, I'd love to go back there and try to find any archives that weren't already recovered. Try to find out which of our origin stories is true."

Jack smiled. "Arcee the archaeologist."

She laughed. "Yeah, something like that."

"As long as I can help you with your research." He grinned.

_If the war ends in his lifetime._ She kept smiling and hoped he hadn't noticed the slight hesitation. "I wouldn't have it any other way, honey. My Indiana Jones to your Marion Ravenwood."

"Hey, wait a minute!" He laughed and gave her hand a playful slap.

She grinned and brushed a fingertip through his hair.

"Arcee," Optimus called through her comlink.

"Here. Did you find something?"

"Yes, but not what we expected. Please return to the ship."

"We're on our way." She signed off and lifted her hand off Jack's lap. He stood, brushed dirt off the seat of his armor, and smiled up at her. She leaned over and they kissed before she rose to her feet.

"Think it's good news?" Jack hurried to keep up with her as she and Tomoko strode back to the ship.

"I hope so." Arcee scowled at the _Harbinger_. "But don't be surprised if it isn't."

#

"Damn." Arcee sighed as she, Jack, and Tomoko entered the cavernous engineering section. Strewn on the floor from one end of the chamber to the other were several dozen Autobot and Decepticon corpses, and an assortment of blown-off body parts, illuminated by the soft glow from a few consoles and several light panels that still functioned.

"Autobot boarding party, looks like." Ashanti swept her rifle-mounted flashlight over the walls. "Burn marks and melted holes everywhere. Must've been one hell of a fight."

"Yeah," Jack muttered. "Looks that way." He glanced up at Arcee and Tomoko. _Oh, hell. The new girl is accumulating enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime, all in the space of a few hours._

Bumblebee fired off a stream of beeps and honks.

"Some of them appear intact," Arcee translated, and hurried over to him and Optimus.

"Do you recognize this one?" Optimus pointed at an Autobot sitting slumped against the wall. His color scheme was a mixture of blue and white. "I have never met him before."

"Me, neither." She crouched beside the body and took a closer look. "I don't see any weapons damage. Some dents and scratches, probably from the crash." She looked up at Optimus. "You think he might just be in self-induced hibernation?"

"I hope so. Ratchet will be able to tell for certain." Optimus walked over to another body, one with a red and blue color scheme and a body type similar to his own. "This one, I _do_ know. Ultra Magnus."

"Huh." Arcee glanced down at Jack before crossing the room. "Last I heard, he was in charge of Bulkhead's old unit, the Wreckers."

"He was Bulkhead's boss back in the day? Small galaxy, huh?" He and Tomoko hurried to catch up with her.

"He also looks intact." Optimus activated his comlink. "Ratchet, we have found the remains of an Autobot boarding party in the wreckage of the _Harbinger_. Two of them appear to have only non-fatal damage, but I need you to determine whether they can be revived." He waited for a reply and nodded. "We'll await your arrival."

"In the meantime," Khalilah said, "we can continue searching the ship. If we can find a console that contains a backup of the flight recorder's latest entries, it would put us a few steps closer to piecing together what happened here."

Optimus turned to look at the two 'Bots.

"This ship has been sitting here for hundreds of years," Arcee said softly. "Maybe thousands. These two won't be going anywhere in the next few minutes."

He nodded. "Bumblebee, wait here for Ratchet. Direct him to your location when he bridges in. We will continue the search."

Bee nodded and stood near Ultra Magnus.

"Have you been able to access any records here?" Arcee glanced around at the active consoles and Optimus nodded.

"The few files we found were corrupted and would not load."

"Figures." Arcee sighed and headed for the door at the far end of the chamber. "Let's keep moving."

#

"Still no change, huh?"

Miko looked down and to the left, and found Rosalina and Lucas approaching. Behind them was a team of four airmen, hanging back but staying just close enough to be sure Rosalina hadn't forgotten them. She'd done a lot to earn everyone's trust over the last few months, but General Sanchez wasn't taking any chances.

Miko shook her head and faced forward again. She'd spent the past hour sitting on Bulkhead's chest, watching his face, waiting for the slightest movement. She wanted to be here when he woke up. Whenever that happened. _If_-

She forced that thought down, took a slow breath, and continued waiting.

"Want some coffee or tea?" Lucas pointed a thumb over his shoulder, toward the main hub, where a coffee pot and a few other necessities had been set up. It was only then Miko noticed the mugs he and Rosalina held in their hands.

"Maybe later. Thanks." Miko looked up at Ratchet as he finished packing the tools he needed.

"Let us know if you change your mind. We'll be happy to bring you some." Rosalina took a sip from her mug and smiled. "The stores are selling cinnamon gingerbread already. Seems like it starts earlier every year, but I'm not complaining. It's my favorite."

"I don't mind either." Lucas chuckled. "It's just kind of odd. Not even Halloween yet, and they're starting with the Christmas stuff."

Miko glanced at them again and managed a slight smile. _Weird, seeing a robot eating and drinking. Kinda cute, though._

Ratchet's footsteps shook the floor as he picked up his tool kit and walked toward the tunnel leading to the main hub. He paused, turned to look at Miko, and twitched his head toward Rosalina. "Are you sure you'll be alright if I leave you alone?"

"Hey, you're talking to the girl who blew up five Insecticons." She winked at him. "And I'm not alone. I'll be fine."

He nodded, turned, and disappeared down the tunnel. Miko watched him leave, waited a few seconds, and the ground bridge activated. She looked back at Rosalina, Lucas, and the airmen.

Rosalina smiled up at her, leaned against the wall, and slipped her arm around Lucas's waist. "Say, if you think I'm out of line for asking personal questions, just say so and I'll drop it-but are you and Bulkhead, um...?"

"No. He's like a big brother." Miko let another brief smile show. "I didn't have any brothers or sisters. Never knew what it was like until I met Bulk."

Rosalina started to say something, but a beep came from the pocket of her lab coat. She pulled a tablet out of it and tapped the screen. She read whatever was on it and smiled.

"Got a message from Groom Lake. A squadron of Vehicons has just radioed for permission to land. It's the 'fifth column' you guys found on the _Nemesis_. Guess it took 'em a while to get here from the moon."

"I was hoping they survived."

"Yeah. You've been outnumbered for so long, but maybe now things are changing for the better."

"I hope so." Miko turned back to Bulkhead and sighed. _Come on, buddy, wake up._ She leaned forward to rest her palm on his chest. _If our chances really are improving, I want you to be around to see it._

#

_Okay, will this one be paydirt or another strike-out?_ Jack followed Arcee into yet another cavernous chamber. The floor had been twisted in the crash, and began to slant to the right as they walked farther in. Arcee stopped at the nearest console and fiddled with the controls.

The panels and monitor lit up, and overhead lights came on gradually. Arcee smiled.

Optimus turned and gave the room a slow visual sweep. "This is an auxiliary control room."

"Looks a lot less damaged than everything we've seen before." Jack shrugged. "Well, aside from the floor being bent into the shape of a potato chip."

"If we don't find what we're looking for here, we probably won't find it at all." Steve walked over to the adjacent console, and Khalilah stepped up to the one on his left.

"Wanna give me a boost, babe?" Jack pointed at the console in front of Arcee. She smiled and lifted him up to the control panel.

"Thanks." He spared a few seconds to let his gaze caress her chest plate as he took a few steps away to avoid getting in the way of her hands. _That's a sight I never get tired of._ He grinned and turned to watch her search for intact files.

Less than a minute passed, then Arcee grinned. "Found the flight recorder. Looks like almost everything was backed up before the ship broke in half." She tapped another button and two rows of windows appeared on her screen. "Playing the last entry now."

The top row displayed feeds from cameras mounted on the hull, and the bottom row showed a variety of sensor data. The camera feeds showed several different views of the same metal surface, ranging from direct downshots to a view that looked almost like a planet's horizon.

Jack glanced up at her. "Is that Cybertron?"

"No. If I'm not mistaken, the _Harbinger_ was in the vicinity of the star humans call Gliese 707." Arcee flicked her optics over the sensor data before returning her attention to the camera feeds. "The ship was fighting a battle in an intense gravity well-more than a gas giant is able to exert at the same distance."

On two of the screens, massive energy beams struck the hull and blew it wide open. The _Harbinger_ returned fire, but its weapons had little to no effect on the metal structure. Arcee glanced at the data scrolling past on the bottom row.

"The gravity's strong enough to put a huge strain on the engines." She pointed at the screens. "They've had the mains at full burn since the playback started, and they're barely moving. Their jump engines are damaged; trying to recharge, but taking longer than they should."

The ship was struck again and again, but continued plowing forward and returning fire.

"Okay, they're picking up some speed. Looks like they're finally breaking away." Arcee planted her hands on her hips and continued watching as the _Harbinger_ limped away from whatever the massive structure was.

"Shit!" Steve blurted, and everyone turned to stare at him. He pointed at his console. "I found some records that were transferred from other Decepticon ships, and others taken from Autobot ships. The _Harbinger_ isn't the only one that encountered this...well...see for yourselves."

Arcee paused the playback, picked Jack up again and carried him to Steve's console. She lowered him to the control panel and scowled at the images on the screen. Jack faced the screen and raised an eyebrow. The image was of an enormous, spherical metal structure with a maw-like opening and a long, horn-like structure on either side of the opening.

_Huh. I have no idea what that is._

Starscream whimpered and backed away until he bumped into the wall. Arcee fired an annoyed glance at him, and Jack almost burst into laughter. Her smile always lit up the whole room, but her Clint Squint could peel the paint right off the walls.

"Unicron," Starscream moaned. He didn't appear to notice Arcee's expression, keeping his wide optics on the screen.

"That's what I was afraid of," Steve said. "I thought I recognized him, but I wanted to be wrong."

"Unicron?" Arcee turned back to the console and scowled at the image. "That fucker is actually _real_?"

"So it would appear," Optimus said. "He is...much larger than I expected."

Steve nodded at his console. "According to the scans, that circular opening is large enough to swallow several planets at once."

"Jesus Christ," Jensen muttered. "That'd make him..._how_ big, exactly?"

Steve tapped a few buttons and the image changed to a graphic of a star system, which then shrank rapidly. Beside it appeared a graphic representing Unicron.

_Oh, hell._ Jack pointed at the image and arched an eyebrow at Steve. "Is that a size comparison?"

"Yes."

A cold sensation rose up in Jack's chest. He turned back to Jensen. "That'd make him about the size of a Dyson sphere."

"Roughly the circumference of Earth's orbit around the Sun, probably." Ashanti took a few steps closer. "_Please_ tell me that thing isn't on course for Earth."

"Let me see if anyone was able to track him." Steve pushed more buttons and a new image appeared, showing a curving line running through a star chart. "It looks like he was headed away from here, though Gliese 707 is frighteningly close to Earth." He fiddled with the controls for a few more seconds and a dotted line sprouted from the end of the solid one. "Assuming he hasn't altered course since whenever this flight path was last updated, he would be headed straight for...oh, no."

Jack glanced at him, then turned and found Arcee's sneer replaced with wide optics and gaping mouth. After staring at the screen for several more seconds, she slowly turned her horrified expression toward him.

"Cybertron."


End file.
